The present invention is in the field of treatment of fowl, primarily chickens and the like which are raised in large quantities on ranches, and more particularly the invention pertains to the equipment utilized to trim the birds' beaks to minimize cannabilism and to force-feed fluids to the bird for various purposes.
In the chicken raising industry, a common problem among fowl is the pecking of one fowl by another, resulting in loss of feathers which in turn results in the loss of weight of the bird due primarily to nervousness and anxiety resulting from the constant pecking. The practice of cutting and cauterizing the birds' beaks is now widespread and a machine made by Lyon Electric Company of San Diego, California, is widely used to speed the processing of the young birds. This machine was developed by James Lyon and is the subject of several patents, including U.S. Pat. No. 3,812,857 issued on May 28, 1974, which shows the basic machine having a removable attachment which provides for an adjustable beak holding orifice and has other features advantageous in certain circumstances in the bird processing procedure. The attachment in this patent is used solely for holding the beak steady while it is being trimmed and cauterized and makes no provision for vaccination, although the vaccination process has been disclosed in other patents pertaining to the machine generally.
Another related U.S. Pat. No. 3,641,998, discloses an apparatus developed by James Lyon and the present invention for the purposes of injecting fluids into fowl, and it is an object of the present invention to permit the injection of fluid into the bird's mouth rather than under the skin and replace the device of U.S. Pat. No. 3,641,998 with the present attachment on a Lyon beak trimmer.
Another machine is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,570,487 which was issued to Lamar W. Reynolds on Mar. 16, 1971. This Patent provides for the trimming and cauterizing of the upper beak member while simultaneously introducing vaccine into the bird's mouth. However, the vaccine and anvil member of the Reynold's Patent must be specially built into the basic Lyon machine and is not easily interchangeable with other accessories.